Pattern: Obama admin again releases regulatory agenda right before a holiday

posted at 5:01 pm on November 27, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

Twice a year, every year, the White House is legally required to release a unified regulatory agenda to indicate for the public record precisely what it is the many arms of our now sprawling bureaucracy are planning to impose upon the American people. The agenda is just a compilation of all of the rules and regs that various departments and agencies are working on, typically released every April and October, but for some inexplicable reason, The Most Transparent Administration, Evah has had an inordinately difficult time complying with these longstanding static time frames.

During last year’s presidential election, they practically skipped out on the practice altogether; after completely nixing a Spring 2012 agenda, evidently because they simply felt like it, they only released their Fall 2012 agenda — not merely sometime soon after the presidential election — but they actually waited until the Friday before Christmas as everyone was getting out of town. Their Spring 2013 unified agenda was released way past the usual time and only the day before the Fourth of July, and this fall’s agenda they just released… last night. As in, the day before Thanksgiving, when Congress is leaving for recess and nobody is paying much attention to the news.

Avoiding the presidential election completely, and now avoiding the Congressional regulatory scrutiny that they can ill afford along with all of the ObamaCare criticisms coming in from all sides? It’s almost like they have some stuff going on they’d just rather not talk about, no? Via the Daily Caller:

On Tuesday, the White House released its regulatory agenda for the fall of 2013. It lists hundreds of pending energy and environmental regulations being crafting by executive branch agencies, including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone. …

Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending regulations originate from the agency’s air and radiation office, including carbon-dioxide-emission limits on power plants.

Carbon-dioxide limits are a key part of President Barack Obama’s climate agenda. The EPA is set to set emissions limits that would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they use carbon capture and sequestration technology. Next year, the agency will move to limit emissions from existing power plants — which could put more older coal plants out of commission.

And completely shutting down existing coal plants next year, while perhaps one of the most noticeable, is only one of the many super-exciting, hyper-progressive regulatory plans the Obama administration has in the works. Obama can complain all day long about the many ways in which Republicans are spitefully thwarting his economic agenda at every turn as the underlying reason behind our practically nonexistent economic recovery, but in reality, it’s precisely the many economically soul-crushing regulations Obama has implemented on his own that are contributing so heavily to our current state of virtual stagnation.

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Remember back when Gingrinch pulled out the Contract With America and we had the first 100 days of killing Clinton’s handiwork.

I want a Black Friday in January 2015 where all of Obama’s agenda is eliminated and passed with simple majorities in both houses. Let him squawk for two years when nothing he wants to do has funding. Including the jet. Presidential salary just got zeroed out with a proclamation that anyone with $50,000k in assets while president gets nada, expires January 20th, 2017.

This little man needs to be made to feel a lot of pain and humiliation for the rest of his miserable days.

What you always have to understand, about a lawless administration, is how much they try to hide. Of course there will be people who are looking for this and will read it. There are many others who will allow this to slip under the radar. They know, when they chose a date like this, a lot gets lost in the shuffle. That’s what lawless administrations do and this one is the worst of the worst. Obama could teach Nixon things about how to subvert the law and avoid media questions, although to be fair, Nixon couldn’t have gotten away with what Obama has.

Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending regulations originate from the agency’s air and radiation office, including carbon-dioxide-emission limits on power plants.

Carbon-dioxide limits are a key part of President Barack Obama’s climate agenda. The EPA is set to set emissions limits that would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they use carbon capture and sequestration technology. Next year, the agency will move to limit emissions from existing power plants — which could put more older coal plants out of commission.

If your Christmas winter-solstice-holiday lights go out this year, you can thank the Obama administration for preventing global warming, and making it even colder out there.

FYI, The Bush Administration and even the Clinton Administration always released the semiannual regulatory agenda on time. This is a rather big deal to anyone doing business in a highly regulated industry. There is an actual statute that requires the publication of the semiannual agenda, precisely because agencies in that past have dumped large and costly regulations on industries before with no warning.

The Fall Agenda is especially important because it gives regulated entities the opportunity to plan for the following year and have some idea what their compliance and legal costs are likely to be. It is now way past the time that most companies have set their budgets for next year. So now when they see a bunch of new regulations coming that they had not planned for, they have to eliminate workers or make other expense cuts to manage the new regulatory costs. When I was a lobbyist, I spent a great deal of time analyzing the Fall Agenda and advising clients on what they could anticipate spending in the following year. It would have been a disaster to have not had this agenda until Thanksgiving.

Whether devious or just sloppy, this is bad government management by Obama.

President Nixon had the character to resign (before possible impeachment). President Obama has zero character. He will never leave public housing as long as food stamps still exist will get free medical care (not Obama Care – because he exempts himself) for the rest of his low life.

We the citizens of the U.S. must take away his pens so he can no longer write Executive Orders or sign bill/resolutions at will.

The Obama Administration’s rule by regulatory agenda reminds me of a textbook in a history course I took on Nazi Germany. Title of book: They Thought They Were Free. It concerned the average German and what he/she thought was happening in their country and the reactions to it. Fascinating book, especially in light of today’s United States. Perhaps the title of a book regarding this time in the country would be: First, They Took Away the Incandescent Light Bulb.

Benghazi is the model of the Obama communications strategy. It is all about “cooling out the mark”. News about crimes and abuses dribbles out tardily, incompletely and in a mist of uncertainty, so that what’s outrageous doesn’t spark outrage till the media can start saying this is “old news” that there’s no need to cover, and it’s time to “move on”.